Hey folks, our creationist antagonist here, Ed67, is going to insist that the order of nucleics in DNA/RNA is a code and for very good reason. The reality is, as we here all know, that DNA/RNA mimic so closely a human-devised code that there is no reasonable option in conversation than to refer to them as codes. Language takes the expedient route to foster understanding even if that understanding isn't exactly accurate.
Big Bang explosion anyone?
The problem here is that our religionist friend, and he has left the clues multiple times in this thread, has not progressed from the DNA=code analogy he learned in high school. He is stuck in that juvenile analogy having failed to learn beyond the most basic.
In Ed67's case, this may be charade to bolster his religious case for creationism. But other aspects of his missives here indicate to me that he honestly does not see, and is trying very hard to not see, the disconnect between his "code" idea and his "thus god" conclusion. Without DNA/RNA defined as a "code" in the classic sense he cannot then jump to "all codes we have ever experienced were created by intelligence thus so must be DNA/RNA thus there are yhwh, elohim, jahovah, allah and their respective corteges complete with pronouncements of light, eloquent serpents and global inundations."
The rub comes with the reality that DNA/RNA, except for the superficial mimicry, is not anything like any code ever devised by human intellect. Human devised codes are arbitrary symbols, artificial human constructs, that, by agreement, represent other artificial human constructs. Letters for words, words for ideas; numbers for grids, grids for locations. Without a convention, a legend of agreed upon meanings between the symbol and its underlying construct, there is no code.
Though we may use arbitrary symbols (ACTG and sometimes U) in representing the DNA/RNA code the underlying property is not another construct but is a real physical entity that does not follow any artificial convention of understanding. The DNA/RNA "code" is just a facade to foster our understanding of the chemistry. These molecules have no choice but to act and react according to the physical rules of organic chemistry. Unlike the artificiality of a human code, this genetic code is a symbolic overlay for a physical reality that requires no intellect to conjure movement, only the electrochemical properties of the valence electrons.
To us it may look like a "code" but thymine couldn't care less what we call it and will do what it does because it has to regardless of the intellect selecting the symbol. No intelligently devised code on this planet works this way.
Ed67 is on an anti-science religious mission to redefine reality to his own emotional comfort, as is the case with all creationists. In Ed67's case he is not openly using verse from an infallible literalist bible. He is trying to hide behind a lab coat (buttoned up to the top to hide the crucifix) eschewing his true belief in his god for some amorphous intelligent designer. The nefarious purpose being to garner some political advantage in the hope that some day he and his colleagues can wrest control of the schools and of society from the people and bring them back, once again, to the church.
A rather verbose way of pointing out that the usage of "code" for a nucleic acid sequence is not of much concern. Ed67 will not, can not, acknowledge the fact that this informal usage of the word by geneticists, biologists, indeed all scientists, even in formal presentations and papers, does not give him the advantage his weak faith so desperately seeks.
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